Dear Mother

Dear Mother

Mother, I was your beloved child.

Then I got married and left you behind.

But in my heart you always stay,

Your example helps me be a mother today.

 

You cared for us, with loving hands and patient ears

You protected us for so many years.

Now when I try and am a mother to my son.

I cannot help but think of us as one.

yashoda_krishna_rb05.jpg

So even though we now live apart.

We are together, in soul and heart.

I love you just as my child loves his mother

Though far away, in thoughts together.

May you always be,

Healthy and well.

Your 100 more birthdays,

Celebrate we shall.

You were sometimes strict

But always for our good.

May you live long.

God bless and touch wood.

Predictive Forecasting in Commercial Applications

Most organizations tend to have a sales plan or forecast for the next 1 year.This is done for internal planning as well as give guidance to financial investment analysts covering the listed company.

However a lot of organizations use simplistic linear models of

1) either growth based on previous history (Last year Sales * Factor of forecast (e.g 10 % growth in sales) -TIME SERIES APPROACH

OR

2) growth based on macro economic causal factors (e.g economy is in recession hence sales will grow by 3 %) REGRESSION BASED APPROACH and

3) A consensus of industrial factors (We have spare capacity of 10 % so we will likely slash prices and have sales growth of 2 % but profit growth of -3%) DELPHI BASED APPROACH (this is also based on bottoms up market feedback and top down sales pressure).

A better approach is to combine all these approaches in one or different models .

This can help build a much more robust forecasting model for organizations using nothing more than simple combination of excel cells.

The following model assumes only seven factors and tries to build a stable and relatively easy to understand forecast model.

Forecasted Sales for this quarter =

Historic Sales for this quarter last year *A1

+ Historic Average Sales for this quarter for past three -five years (based on industry cycle ups -downs)*A2

+ Historic Sales for this quarter/Actual Sales of Last Quarter( for seasonal factors )*A3

+Causal Factor 1 ( Eg. Outsourcing is likely to grow by 15 % in this year) *A4

+Causal Factor 2 (Foreign Exchange Movement.Dollar is likely to depreciate by 10 %)*A5

+ Causal Factor 3 (Our bench strength is likely to grow by 3 % in this quarter)*A6

+ Percentage Error Factor *A7 (There will always be +-5 to15 % error in forecasts.Capturing this error also helps provide a feedback loop for planning).

Here A1- A7 are constants

In order to get actual values of A1-A7 , run this a regression (use the add-in and tools menu in excel) on actual data for past three years quarters (keeping last six months seperate)

Then run the actual equation on last two quarters and check for actual error. If error exceeds the comfort level (+-3 % for critical industries and +-15 % for harder to predict industries) . Iterate the last two steps till you get a good equation.

Then substitute in the 7 factor predictive model to build your simple and robust sales plan for this quarter.

Happy forecasting !!!

Virtual Networking- Linkedin as a Case Study

I am Ajay Ohri,from Delhi ,India and I have been on Linkedin for almost a year now. I got an invite from an American client of mine who became friends with me. LinkedIn seemed a great way to keep in touch. As a data mining and analytics specialist , I was part of the SAS , SPSS and R groups (technical email groups in data mining). But something was missing. Thats right..the interactive touch that Linkedin increasingly provided. I have now 2580 contacts, get atleast 8 invitations every day , have 11 recommendations from professional collegues and have best answers in 2 questions .( ok, I am bad at the questions). These are some of the things I found help me grow my network and gain a lot by devoting 15 minutes of my time to online networking everyday.

1) Put up a nice professional photo – It helps people who have stumbled on your profile with a good impression.

2) Put all the companies and schools you have been to. Complete your profile. Then use the search feature to build up initial contacts.

3)  Ask and get atleast 1 recommendation per company. That should not be hard if you are a good  worker whom people remember.People with more recommendations are trusted and get more invites.Give honest and credible recommendations yourself.

4) Answer atleast one question a day belonging to your domain. Or Atleast ask 1 question. Ask atleast 1 question a week. That helps build up your noticeability.

5) Be an open networker- If you are open to sharing your email address (which is any ways available with a lot of people) you can be an open networker and join the Open Networkers and Linked In Open Networkers (LIONs)

6) Publicise your profile using the public profile feature. Use the link as an email signature.

7) Try and learn more about your area of work by going through questions. It helps build up skills. Accept all recruiters invites. They and your enhanced skills will help you in a rainy day in a tough economy.

8) Be humourous in your profile message (eg Ajay Shrugged …or Ajay is changing the world one mega byte a time). People love to network with humourous people.

9)Be sensitive to cultural differences when answering questions. Eastern and Western cultures think differently about what is private, public and what is rude.

10) Have fun doing this. Otherwise if it becomes a chore , like mowing the grass, it will remain unattented to and you will miss out on the free benefits of Linkedin.

11) Pass on forwards to help other people get jobs or get in contact. This will establish you as a good person to stay linked in too.

12) Join as many groups and associations that you find interesting. Start from your school alumni groups, then with groups of your friends and so on.Found a group. I founded two Decision Stats for data mining and statisticians and Creative Destruction for lateral thinkers.

Linked In help me get a contract for my firm, numerous inetrviews,domain specialists for technical help, and friends , and fortunately Linkedin allowed me access to fabulous people who did that.It helped me learn a language called R , which is open source and helped me give ideas to make two websites www.iwannacrib.com and www.decisionstats.com. Above all it gave me 2580 acquaintances whom I can fall back on in tougher times. Collectively they do help make a difference.

All the best for your online social networking. If Bill Gates can be on Linked In after retirement, then why can’t you ?

Surprising Hi5 and networking within social networks

Recently I visited my old account at Hi5 and was extremely surprised at the changes.


1) Much cleaner layout

2) and a lot of good looking applications (minus the Facebook Application Spam) with familiar faces from Rock You etc etc.

I guess the Google Social API seems to be working. Which leads me to ponder , since most people prefer to visit atmost 2-3 social networks , and will soon  have the ability to port material across social networks,

could there be a new wave of IPO’s and mergers and acquisitions in Social Networks to capture and consolidate audiences.

Much will depend upon Google itself (as it tries to lift the whole internet advertising industry all alone with a potential Yahoo deal)  or the Return of the Sith from Redmond who could buy , bully and  bludgeon their way into the new web 2.0 especially with Rich Internet Applications (like Silverlight from Microsoft coming) and Google facing anti trust scrutiny for a change.

Watch this space! Till then play Triumph on either My Space or FaceBook

 www.hi5.com

Obama battles Clinton over the Guamanians

Both Clinton and Obama say they’ve got the better health plan for Guamanians.

Obama said in an interview with Pacific Daily News that he would support reexamination of a $5.4 million Medicaid spending limit imposed on the territory. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, told KUAM radio earlier that his wife would work to remove the cap.

Hillary Clinton also has called for Guamanians to be able to vote in presidential elections.

That was from a NY Times Story………

Now here is Iwanna crib’s perspective

If George W Bush called people from Greece as Grecians what would he call people from Guam.

Johnny McCain cant distinguish his Sunnis from his Shias but wants to fight one and ally with the other.

Can John Mc Cain distinguish Guamanians .Last heard he said he was held five years prisoner there. Only to tell he was misquoted by the f**kinf reporters.

Some nostalgic Yahoo features

1) Music Launch cast is the best free Radio on Yahoo messenger

2) My Yahoo is much better than iGoogle

3) Yahoo Groups were the first and still leading e-groups.

4) Yahoo messenger lost out to Skype and Gtalk but its now interchangeable with MSN contacts. The add-ins are great and the avatars are still unmatched. Plus add-ins that are twitter compatible, facebook reachable for status changes.Open Social should ensure some Facebook Games /Apps reach there too

5) The new Email look is a cross between Outlook and Gmail…but its cool.And better than hotmail/livemail.

6) Yahoo Buzz, Yahoo Answers are  good.So is Yahoo pictures.

7) The search engine ads are better left to Google.Thats underway taking out the last bottleneck.

8) Yahoo finance is still one of the best financial data sites.

9) Its still an old fashioned cluttered site…for nostalgia this is the best. Also has a host of options .Especially like Pipes.

No wonder Jerry Yang is squeezing Ballsmer of Micro-Soft for more money .

i-google.GIF       my-yahoo.GIF


Facebook has a cool change !!

After a rather big series on outsourcing, we are back reporting on technolgy.

Facebook now has chat available between contacts.

Yes it is quite light and fast.

No you might not voice chat as of now.

Yes the design is much better than Gtalk, Yahoo, Skype,Hotmail combined.

facebook-chat.GIF

I uploaded my entire Linked In list (2500 contacts ) (using export CSV function in Linkedin and upload contact file in Facebook) and sent them a facebook invite.

With a 10 % response rate and luckily 0 % no complaint rate  , I aim to chat with some of the top 250 professionals I know of, besides some fast aging batch mates.

Web 2.0 is cool ,huh !